My kids have been into geography lately, and of course they are into Minecraft (whose kids isn't?). While I can appreciate Minecraft as a parent, I prefer when the kids are working on meaningful tasks as opposed to just roaming and killing mobs or animals. Last week, I had the idea to show them images of famous world landmarks and ask them to re-create their own version in Minecraft. They LOVED this task. Here are some images of their Arc de Triomphe interpretations.

Without prompting, they added so many little touches that I was a little blown away by the creativity! There were torches, and my eldest even included inside/upstairs, where he added statues and signs. My favorite was the one below, "Upstairs tour by permission of the French government only!" Haha!

There was even an "employees only" wing with beds to that the employees could rest as needed. Obviously, they did this in creative mode, but they couldn't wait for another assignment after they did the first one! You can take screenshots of your Minecraft creations by pressing F2, then create a digital scrapbook of all of the landmarks they create! If you'd like them to record the landmarks they create or get started with some landmarks that are fairly easy to create in Minecraft, I have a free printable for you! It includes both color and blakc and white versions of the 5 landmarks included (Acropolis, Arc de Triomphe, Brandenburg Gate, Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the Statue of Liberty). It's part fo my resource library, which is free when you join the Momgineer newsletter list.

If your kids are ready for even more of a challenge, you can try a Google Image search for inspiration or try some of the following landmarks:

Burj Khalifa

Christ the Redeemer

Colosseum

Eiffel Tower

Pyramids of Giza

St. Basil's Cathedral

Sydney Opera House

Taj Mahal

The Duomo (Santa Maria del Fiore)

Tower Bridge

I hope your kids enjoy this task as much as mine do. Not only will they be learning about geography and world landmarks, they will also be exposed to different types of architecture styles and history. I suggest taking books out of your local library to go along with this task to make it even more meaningful in your homeschool or classroom. If they create and landmarks, feel free to link to them in the comments below. We would love to see them!

Try a STEM Challenge Your Students will Love

I have a freebie I'd love to share with you. I hope you will try out; I know your students will love it! You can download it here:

Follow the Engineering Design Process and Learn about Sound

Students will follow the engineering design process to create their very own voice muffler. If you are studying sound, this is a great resource to use. You won't need a lot of expensive materials and this is a fun one to test out. Best of all, you don't need any marshmallows or spaghetti.

What's inside? Well, initially I thought about having the kids design and construct a megaphone.

Thirty seconds later a voice in my head scolded me:

I thought more about it and...

Forget about a megaphone. Instead of turning UP the sound, let's try to turn it DOWN.

Woohoo!

The best part of this challenge is that you can keep the best voice mufflers handy in case you are having one of those days where you just need to belt out something really loudly but know you can't. Just use the voice muffler and then go about your business as usual. Enjoy!